Monday, March 02, 2009

Scotland beat Italy in a convincing manner at Murrayfield this past weekend to record their first win of this years the Nations championship. Simon Danielli scored an excellent try, helping the hosts to a 26-6 win.

"It feels great at Murrayfield, getting the win," Danielli, scorer of Scotland's first try, said. "I thought we really deserved it. The forwards were really good today; they gave the backs some space."

Both sides went into the showdown having lost their opening two fixtures, but though Italy had beaten Scotland in the previous two tournaments, they made too many handling errors to seriously threaten a third consecutive win.

Chris Paterson kicked Scotland into an early 6-0 lead with two penalties and though Italy fought back, with a drop goal from Sergio Parisse, Phil Godman then kicked a penalty to make it 9-3 to Scotland.

The home side made a break through on 34 minutes when Danielli tore down the right flank for the first try of the afternoon. Godman converted and Italy's Andrea Marcato then missed with a penalty from near the halfway line, making it 16-3 at halftime.

I've been saying since the begining of the tournament "Ireland will beat France, France will beat Wales, and Wales will beat Ireland"By the way, England 4th and Scotland 5th, I really hate Martin Johnson

France won't have the math to catch up. They generally are unable to put Italy away with big scores -- they get bogged down in the fwds game and the physical crap instead of spreading wide and carving up the useless ITA backs.

Italy deserved a try. Actually no wait - Parisse deserved a try. The drop goal was almost as if he was trying to prove a point. Why he wasn't voted man of the match I don't know. Overall he played considerably better than Danielli who got it just because he scored a try.

Well pleased with a win and 2 excellent tries. Think 1 or bothli Evans boys have an outside chance for a lions place. Still not a fan of Danielli's took his try well but still one of the slowest wingers in 6 nations. Anyway they could cause Ireland a bit of trouble and will certainly beat the 13 man english team!!

this "Latino Lions" is a good idea that i thought about before, but i guess i would just pick french, italian and argentinian players, AND THAT'S ALL! man, spanish or portuguese rugby is a joke! just played by a bunch of amateurs!

I agree that ESP, POR aren't there. But in the case of ROM, there are quite a few good players in the French leagues, incl. Top 14.

My goal was to make a team base that was inclusive, not exclusive.

That being said, I don't think there should be a quota that forces them to pick "at least one" from a poor country -- if they're not good, they're not good. Scotland on past Lions tours comes to mind.

I think ROM has some fine players, that could come into the mix. Problem is that they are in the forward pack and would be competing with Argies, Italians, and Arg 2nd XVs that became Italian citizens.

On a side note, didn't Vasco Uva of Portugal say at RWC 2007 that he was the best #8 in the world?

Cheyanqui 'scotland on last lions tours come too mind'. Do you know your lions history, obviously not! Are you forgetting legends such as the late Gordon Brown,Ian McGlauchlin,Ian McGeechan,Andy Irvine,Gavin and Scott Hastings,Finlay Calder,Gregor Townsend and probably the best player on the '97 SA tour Tom Smith. Get a grip mate, ive noticed quite a lot of your comments are bollocks and nice too see you keeping up the good work.

Latino tour???? What a load of crap?? Just because their languages have latin roots?? The UK is a real entity and unifying them into a team makes sense. Plus it happens that their teams have similar levels, Scoltand being a bit worse but still ok.Dude, go tell a frenchman he's a Latino you'll end up hung in the middle of the Bastille !

mor me our team is really depressed,they became big stars in italy so they maybe think they're good...they're wrong!many players have problems in their clubs (bortolami) or suffered injuries (castrogiovanni,ghiraldini).We does'nt have many players to pick,so if ongaro is out our sobstitute is embarassing.

after all good game from the usuals:ghiraldini,parisse,bergamasco bros,zanni and the 2 novices in the backs.

This year we will win the wooden spoon surely,but I think that the next year with the 2 provinces and probably a new rugby manager we can improve our game.